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Well, this morning, as far as where we're headed, I want to give you a quick quick overview, but uh kind of give you a little sense of where we've been and where we're headed uh in the next couple of weeks, and that last week we told you guys we were putting pause on our 1 Corinthians series just for three weeks to teach a series called Managers of Grace. Uh and part of that really came out of prayer and conversation with our elders and asking God, how do we continue to help Point Community Church as this family of believers, this community of believers, uh grow and mature in our faith and mature in our discipleship process. And so one of the things that we we continually see is that money uh and stewardship and this process is a big part of our journey of faith. It's a journey of trusting God, it's a journey of growing and how we use what God's given us. And so I want to make sure and say a couple things that I said last week and reiterate the point that uh we are not teaching on money because we want yours. Okay? Um God He doesn't want our money, He wants our hearts, and I'll say that again in a little bit in a different way, but I want you to understand that we've actually had some of the best giving we've ever had in the life of our church over the last five weeks. And so we're really, really grateful God's provided because he always funds his mission. Uh, God always takes care of the needs of his people, and as we do what God's called us to do, he provides the resources. Uh the question, of course, for me and for you is are you gonna participate? Are you gonna be a part of that? Uh, but even more so, uh, you know, where's your heart? And so I know just because I I've been around enough people, I've said in enough churches, that there are people who come on Sundays like this, and the moment the word money comes out of the pastor's mouth, whoever's teaching that day, they're like, oh man, this no, no, I did not come on a money money teaching Sunday, right? They instantly get like frustrated, they get nervous, they get uh concerned, they get fearful. Um people get angry, and that's because what they've heard in church a lot of times isn't biblical. Uh they've heard they've seen manipulation, they've seen misuse and abuse of money, they've seen uh pastors do some really uh dangerous, uh mean, spirited, uh, ungodly things. And so that's created a dynamic where sometimes like people come in the door and they're wounded from past experiences about money. And and I've I've seen some of this misuse and abuse, and I just want to go ahead and tell you now look, like, we're not perfect, we don't have it all figured out, we don't have it all together, but uh God is not trying to get your you to to to give him your money uh because he needs it. Okay? Because God doesn't need it, he owns everything, and if he wants it, he'll get it. But but that's a whole nother story, right? But here's the reality: God wants you to be free. And I want you to be free, and I want you to experience the fullness that God has for you because the scripture reminds us in John 10 that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He's the one who takes. But what? Jesus comes to give life. He's the one who gives, he's the one who supplies, he's the one who blesses, he's the one who wants to pour out on us all that he has for us. But sometimes we're clinging to the stuff that is getting in the way of that, i.e., our money and material possessions. And so, that being said, uh, we said that this series called Managers of Grace is coming straight out of this first uh chapter, uh, first chapter in Peter. Uh 1 Peter 4.10 is the verse, it's the fourth chapter of the first book of Peter. And it says this in 1 Peter 4.10, based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others as good managers of the varied grace of God. Okay? You hear that? That last phrase, as good managers of the varied grace of God. This conversation about stewardship is much bigger than money. It's about our very lives. It's about what God has gifted us by his grace. And what has God gifted us? Well, last week we talked about God's gifted us our very breath. He's gifted us the ability to actually be alive today, to be here in this place. He's also gifted us families, he's gifted us our all of our resources that we have. God has gifted us those things by his grace. And we now get to manage those things for him. And so, if we're gonna be mature disciples, we've got to learn how to manage those things in a way that honors him, in a way that leads others to experience life in him. And so I want us to get right into the text today because we've actually got uh a couple that are gonna come and share a little bit of their story, their journey with us this morning of how God is freeing them up, how God is growing them, God is working in their hearts in this area. Uh but I want us to read from Matthew chapter 6, verse 19 through 34. It's lengthy, but if you go ahead and pull out your Bibles, we're gonna go there. Um, we're gonna work through it. It'll be on the screen behind me, but also if you want to copy yourself, there's uh some copies of the scripture underneath these chairs. Uh if you don't own one, uh let me know. We'll give you one. But we want you to have the Bible and we want you to be able to read it. And if you don't hear anything I say today, I encourage you just to read this text and to actually spend time meditating on it, asking God to speak to you through it, and I believe He can do that. Uh, a couple other things that are helpful is one, inside of your worship guide, we have a little um a little guide that you can you can fill in the blanks as we go, you can fill in some notes, you can write some things down that'll be helpful to come back to later on, but also there's a study guide, just a front and back half-sheet study guide. Some of you may have done that this week. If you didn't, I encourage you to do it. Just a practical way to get into the word yourself. Um, some people think, well, you know, I can't get into the word for myself because I don't really understand it. I don't know how to study the Bible. I'll just wait till next Sunday and somebody will tell me what it means. Uh you can get into the Bible and you can ask God to speak to you and He will. And I trust that He will. And so there's a simple little guide you can do that. Um, and so I encourage you to do that. And then uh one other note on this is just because we wanted to be really helpful to you guys. At the bottom of the notes, you'll probably notice a little statement or a little section there that says, if you have questions about finances, or if you have questions about what we're teaching on, we want to be completely open, want to be completely accessible to you. And so we invite you, you can either write on that connect card that's in there your question or your comment. Uh you can also text it to us. And there's a text number in there. And if you text that to us next week, we're going to address some of the questions that you guys have been asking about finances and about God's plan for stewardship. And so we invite you to do that so we can address it next week in service. Here we go. Matthew chapter 6, verse 19. Let's jump in. It says, Don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and still. But collect for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and still. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and to despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money. This is why I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky. They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow. They don't labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won't he do much more for you, you of little faith. So don't worry, saying, What will we eat, or what will we drink, or what will we wear? For the idolaters eager eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Amen. Right? That is an incredible section of text when it comes to this issue of money. And you can hear the Father's heart. You can hear through Jesus' teaching God's heart for people. And I would just simply summarize it that God wants to free us up from the stress and the anxiety and the worry that's so connected to this issue of money. And I believe that God wants to free some of you up today. And I know that because he's been doing that in my own heart this week as I've thought about this text and I've prayed through this text, and I've prayed, God, over the course of my life, help me to be less and less attached to stuff and more and more attached to the things that really matter. That's you. So, um, in this text, Jesus shows us that money has this ability, this power to control us. It has this ability to control our lives. And I hope you know this, but if you don't, money is not in and of itself a good or bad thing. Okay? It's amoral, if you will. It's neutral. So money is not bad. It's what you do with money that can be bad. Or it can be good, right? I've seen incredible things done with money. Funded uh things like going to other countries in the world and digging water wells and helping people who did not have living or running water have water. That's awesome. The fact that we have the money to buy the plane tickets and to buy the supplies to go to that place and to help a people who don't have water have water. Well, that's a great way to use money, right? Then I've watched money do some really corrupt evil things, some bad things. I've watched money enslave people. I've watched the drive and the desire for money to do some, uh, to cause some really evil things to happen. And remember the Bible doesn't say, right, that money is evil. It says the love of money is evil. Now, I want to be careful and also tell you, though, that money, when you start to accumulate it, is dangerous. It's very dangerous because it has power. It has this ability to influence our life. You know, Jesus even uses the language here. He says you can't be the slave of two masters. So he's talking already about the fact that it can enslave us. He says you can't be a slave to God and to money. So he's showing that this is a powerful thing in our lives. And I would encourage you this morning to really think about your own heart. How has money, I'm not your Holy Spirit, this is between you and God in many ways. Hopefully it gets fleshed out in community, but how in your life have you let God enslave you, have you let money enslave you? Is money enslaving you? Or are you fully free from its clutches? Are you free from its shackles? Okay? So I want us to look at this. How does money control us? This text gives us uh a real sense of how money is at work in controlling us. And again, remembering that it's what we do with it that controls us, but the idea of money and what we think we can gain through money really does have power. It really does have an effect on our lives. And we'd be foolish to think that it doesn't. Okay, I'm just telling you right now, uh, because I get a head start on these passages and I have to wrestle with them throughout the week, God begins to reveal just how depraved we are, how sinful we are, and how many times we don't even realize something is there until God just says, boom, he hits us upside the head in love. But but he shows us how that we can be really entrapped by different things in our lives. Well, notice what verse 22 and 23 say. I'm gonna read it to you again because it's uh it's actually kind of odd that in the middle of a section where he says, Don't store up treasures, and then he goes on to the end part saying, Don't worry and don't be anxious, that in sandwiched in between is this little nugget of truth that reminds us of the power of money and possessions. He says this in verse 22. He says, The eye is the lamp of the body. And if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? So he gives us an illustration that seems maybe a little bit silly in some sense, and it's like, what are you trying to drive at, Jesus? You say you're saying that if the light is bad, the lamp is bad, uh, and that's the eye, then everything else is bad. Uh so if it's dark, if the lamp the light, which is dark, which doesn't make sense, but the light is dark, then how great is the darkness, okay? What is he saying? Well, I think this is what Jesus is driving at, and it actually clarifies itself a little bit more in the passage in Luke 11 and Luke 12, where Jesus is talking about the same thing. I think what he's driving at here is that we are easily deceived in this area of money and possessions. That we are blind. Let's put it that way. We are literally blind to understanding the power and the influence that money and possessions has in our life. We are very blind to that, and that's why it has a power because we're not even aware of it. We're not even remotely engaged in the thought that we could be entrapped in materialism or in uh greed, right? Now, I through the years as a pastor, people have come to me at multiple times along the way, a lot of times, and saying, Hey, I want to be free from this particular sin. Can I just tell you, I've never had anyone come to me and say, I am greedy, and I want to be free from greed. No one. I can't I can I cannot recall a time. Now I can recall a time when we had a message and we talked about giving and we talked about materialism, and people are like, okay, you're right. But never on their own have I ever had anyone come and say, I'm greedy. Would you help me? I've heard people say, I'm, you know, uh, I lust, or I have pride, or I mean, I have this issue of jealousy, or I have a issue of deception. But greed is one of those things that's sneaky, isn't it? It's really, really sneaky. I uh I read a story this week about uh a church back in the 1860s, and this church had set a uh kind of a bar, if you will, among their church members to say, because we know that greed sneaks in so uh subversively that we're gonna set a standard that says that on our profit margin, we won't go over 4% on our profit margin for the things that we sell. And that sounds a little bit crazy, maybe a little bit ludicrous, especially in this culture. We're like, you know, 50%, 100%, let's mark that baby up, let's get some money, you know. But then they actually set it at 4%. You want to know why? Because they knew that you can really see a lot of sin in your life because it's easy to gauge, like, for example, adultery, right? Impurity. Uh you you can see that. It's pretty obvious. You don't say, wait, wait, wait, you're wait, you're not my wife. I mean, that doesn't happen to you. But with greed, right? Greed is something that sneaks in, and you have to have a way of measuring it. So they literally said, we're gonna measure the greed that we have in our life. We're gonna, we're gonna say, let's say this is 4%, and the pastor of the church uh actually he got pulled called out by his elders, and they actually fired him because he was charging 6%. And the issue was they said, you are specifically offending God over this commitment we've made because you are trying to make more, and it's because you're greedy. And he wouldn't own it. And they said, forget it. Uh you're you're done because you're not being honest. Now, I just tell you that story because we we we aren't very serious about this sin. And we're not very aware of this sin. And there's obviously a whole lot more here than just simply we want uh people to stop being greedy. God wants a lot more than just us being greedy, to stop being greedy. Okay? Uh God is after our hearts, and and greed is an indicator that we are putting our hope and our trust in something, and we're gonna talk about that in just a second. But notice in this passage, he again says that that if that lamp is bad, then the darkness is gonna overcome you. It's how great is that darkness. And when materialism and greed take root, we stop asking the question, how are we making money and how are we spending money in a way that honors God? That's no longer even on our mindset, our thoughts. We're no longer thinking about is is there a way that I can honor God in the way that I make money? Is there a way that I can honor God in the way I spend money? It's not even a question we ask anymore. Have you noticed that? Because we're blinded to it. Um, I know for me personally, in a real practical sense, one way that I can remind myself of how I guess maybe complacent I've got in this area, is when I go on a mission trip and I get into a third-world country environment and I walk around a place that literally they people have nothing, and I look at it and I see it and I'm like, we are so rich. I mean, we are so rich. How in the world do I ever sit at home and say I don't have enough? How could I ever get to the place where my heart is so screwed up that I'm thinking, man, I'm just not very wealthy. I mean, you guys know this statistically? Most of us in this room, we're in the top 5% of wealth in the world. Are you hearing that? That means you're wealthier than 95% of the people on this planet. How many of you feel rich? Most of us don't, right? Most of us don't, unless we have a little bit of Jesus perspective, a little God perspective. We've had those moments. God's, you know, reminds us we are rich, we are rich, we are rich. And the problem is, is we don't even see it. And then that begins to corrupt our hearts. We are blinded to that reality. And I want you and me today to just be honest with ourselves that we need God to show us if we've gotten greedy, if we've gotten materialistic, if we've started putting uh too much emphasis on these things. And because money has this control. It's how it controls our lives. We're blind to it. In Luke 12, I mentioned it a while ago that it kind of clarifies. Jesus goes on shortly after saying, the eye is the lamp of the body, same thing. Says exactly the same thing the way Luke records it, but Luke adds this piece. He says, Jesus then said, Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions. That's like backwards from the way the world thinks, right? Because in many times in the United States, it's like however much stuff you have, that's how much life you have. And the truth of the matter is, is that our life is not found in the abundance of our possessions. Our life is found in something much, much, much greater, much more important. So, um, money has this power to keep us from asking ourselves again, how do we make it, how do we spend it? Um, there are companies, maybe even people, who are willing to sacrifice their integrity, their character, uh, they're willing to sacrifice their family, they're willing to sacrifice all kinds of things for money. That's a problem. And we believers shouldn't be in participating in that. We're willing to cut corners, we're willing to enslave people, willing to do things that are not of God in order to make money because money has become something that we worship, right? And so we know that that that is a powerful reality. And then also just the spending part of it. I mean, how many times do I just spend money without even thinking? Without even thinking, and really stopping and thinking, okay, how is this a good decision or a wise decision? How is this because we've got so much we can just easily spend it without even stopping to pray about how we spend it until after the fact. Sometimes we're spending money we don't even have, right? We're spending money that uh we don't even don't even have by by taking out massive loans and lines of credit in order to buy stuff. Um and and we don't even need the stuff, but but we're there, we're we're blinded to the fact that this is not good because this is just what the culture does, and so we just buy in and we just become blind to it. So the question I want to ask next is is why does money control us? Why does it control us? Well, Jesus talks about this again in this section of scripture, he alludes to it there, and I would say uh that it could really be summarized in that we read we are looking for money to do something that it really can't, but we think that it can. Okay? We're looking for money to provide security and significance in our life. And that's why it has such a power, is because we actually think that it can provide the security and the significance that we all long for. Um now, this has been an interesting journey in my own life because I I think at times I would say, no, I'm not really looking to money uh or possessions to find my security or to find uh my significance, my importance. But when I've dug back the layers of my own thinking and justification, if you will, I find that there's this sense in which many times I attach my security and my significance to what I have possessions, money. And again, this requires the Holy Spirit to come into our thinking and into our processes uh of living and to expose some of these issues. Um of us have unknowingly become a lot like Gollum. You gonna be Lord of the Rings fans? Okay? Now I remember reading the Lord of the Rings books when I was a kid, and I would read those books and I would picture in my mind what this whole process looked like, and this weird creature Gollum had this little ring that he called his precious, that's right. And and I think what's interesting about that for me is that there are things in my life other than God that have taken that place like that ring, and they become my precious. And I began to want them and to desire them so much so that I'm willing to do anything and everything to get them and to. Protect them. And the reason why that money has such a control on us and a power on us is because we begin to treasure it. We begin to give it so much worth. And in fact, he even says in the passage later on, towards the end, he says that's what the idolaters long for. What is he saying? He's saying that we've actually turned stuff into an idol. And by the way, it's not just money, right? There's all kinds of things that can be idols in our lives. But whatever you idolize controls you. It drives you. It affects and impacts your life and your decisions and what you do with your time and what you do with your energy and what you think about, what really consumes you. Again, I'm not your Holy Spirit, but if you really stopped and asked this question, when I'm given complete free space, and moms are like, yeah, right, like I ever have free space to think, right? But if you really ever have free space to just sit and think, and you don't have anything on your agenda, what is your mind and heart drawn to? What do you think about? What do you daydream about? Anybody daydream anymore? Do we have time for daydream in our busy crazy culture? Yeah? What do you daydream about, right? What really consumes? Because that tells you what's really most important to you. What really you care about is what you go to when you're not forced to think about anything else. Right? When you just have that freedom. That's convicting to me, guys. Because a lot of times it's not stuff that matters. And the things that can become our precious that drives us, that consumes us, that controls us, uh, those are the things that really, again, will reveal our hearts. Where is our heart? And so we can look at things and we say, well, if I accumulate enough stuff, then I'll be important. And part of that's because we live in a culture, in a world where people who have more think they're more important than people who have less. I mean, truthfully, I mentioned going to a third world country and how good that is for my heart to walk and just kind of be re-sensitized to the reality that I'm rich. You know what's also really exposing to me is that I go into those environments, and many times I'm around people who have less than me, and there's this part of me that thinks that somehow I'm better than them because I have more than they do. That is messed up. That is not of God. Where did I get that idea? Where did I get the idea that because I have more than somebody, that that makes me more important, more significant, more valuable? And yet that's how the culture functions many times is that the more we have, the more important we think we are. Guys, I hope you know this. But when we stand before Jesus, it won't matter one bit how many uh figures are in our bank account. It won't matter one bit how big our house is, how many cars we have, how incredible our job is. It won't matter one bit any of that stuff that we cling to in this world for significance, right? Which really leads to the next thing, which is the idea somehow we think that money will provide the security that we long for. And it can't. How many wealthy people who have so much are still dying every day? How many wealthy people that you know are still in depression, are still going through divorces, are still dealing with poverty, but not in a poverty of wealth, of money, but in a poverty of spiritual poverty. How many people? So many, right? And this is this fact that we have bought into somehow that if we can get enough stuff that we can pad our lives against the hardship and the difficulty and the suffering that's in this world. And the truth is it's not there. It's not. Proverbs 18, 11, it's a great proverb. It says this a rich man's wealth is his fortified city. In his imagination, it is like a high wall. Somehow we've led ourselves to believe, let ourselves believe that in stuff, if we could just get enough stuff, then we can secure our life. But that's not going to secure us. This week we had a family friend, it's actually last week that she passed away, a family friend and a person who was a part of our church in Round Rock before we moved down here to plant uh this church, and and uh she had a long battle with cancer and she passed away. Uh, she left behind three little boys and a husband, and they're neat, neat people. Uh it was really hard to watch the process. We prayed for them daily uh for her healing, prayed for for uh just their family, prayed for for God to work in that. Um God chose in his sovereignty that it it was time for her to go, and she's now with Jesus and she's way better off than we are, right? Um but here's the deal: the funeral that happened on Friday, and I would say more of the celebration of her life that happened on Friday, uh, they didn't talk about how much money she had. And talk about how much stuff she'd accumulated in this life, and talk about how many, how how nice her clothes were that she wore, how nice a car she drove. Her and her husband did pretty well, they were pretty decently wealthy. They didn't talk about that stuff. You know what he talked about? Talked about who she was as a person, her love for people, her joy, her character. Talked about the things that really matter. Yet so many people are running around after things that don't matter and forgetting what really matters. Guys, God wants to set us free from trying to find our security and our significance in stuff because you're not gonna find it there. You're gonna be sorely disappointed. Over and over again, God wants to free us from that. So the question is is how does we how do we actually break free? And how do we actually experience freedom from this control? Well, um, there's a positive and a negative in this passage. A positive and a negative. Now, they're they're all kind of two primary things, but then they're they're explained a little more in detail throughout the passage. But the first thing is in verse 19, he says this don't collect for yourselves treasures on the earth. Don't collect for yourselves treasures on the earth. What's the passage telling us? Saying, don't buy a bunch of stuff and consume a bunch of stuff and get a bunch of stuff and build up a bunch of wealth because guess what? It's not gonna last. It's not gonna matter in the end, it's all gonna it's all gonna go away. Now, I I do want to make sure I'm clear on this. I'm not telling you that it's it's it's a bad thing to own things. Okay, it's not it's not a bad thing to have cars and houses and clothes. I'm not saying that, but I'm telling you, if you accumulate a bunch of stuff, if you just get a whole bunch of stuff and and you think, man, this stuff's gonna make me happy, this is gonna bring me peace, this is gonna bring me satisfaction, this is gonna bring that security and significance that I've always longed for, just go ahead and just I want to go ahead and burst your bubble now. It's not gonna happen. Okay? Because every rich person you ever talk to, here's what you find. Um, you find they always want a little bit more. I just need a little bit more to be secure. A little bit more to be satisfied, a little bit more to be happy. It doesn't matter if you have $10 in your bank account right now, or if you don't even have a bank account right now, or if you have $10 million in your bank account right now, this stuff is not going to satisfy you, right? Don't store up treasures on the earth. Stop wasting your money in hopes of attaining something that you can't get from it. Don't play the game, as we like to say. Um, how many times you go into a store and there's so good, oh, you need this shirt. You need this, you need this clothing, you need this item. Uh if you if you if you're into the outdoors, oh man, you really need this for your camping gear. You miss out on this, man. You're just not gonna be as good of a camper, right? Not gonna have this. This is really important. I mean, this is good at selling us all these things, and we accumulate all this junk that's all gonna burn. I'm not saying it's wrong to have stuff. I'm saying, how much stuff do you need? Because sometimes we we've really convinced ourselves we need a whole lot more than we do. And we just bought into the trap. We've stepped right into it and consumed it. But I want to focus more on the positive because it's not just about don't put don't store up treasures in the earth. The other side of this, and the rest of the passage speak to this, is the idea of store up for yourself treasures in heaven. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust can't destroy, where thieves can't break in and steal. Like store up for yourselves treasures in the eternal kingdom that is to come. Rather than in this life that's passing away. So I um want to get practical on this. The truth of the matter is that for a lot of us in this room, um we are very fearful of giving stuff away. Because we feel like, this is American thought, that if we give stuff away, we're gonna run out for ourselves. But I want to ask you a question. How many of you in this room want to be free from the anxiety and the fear and the stress that surrounds money? I'm guessing all of you, right? I'm guessing everybody wants to be there. So then here's the follow-up question. You don't have to raise your hand. How many of you are willing to give stuff away in order to get there? Now, the reason I asked that is because a primary way God pries our fingers off of and removes the heart focus we have on stuff is to call us to give. To give and to invest in the things that matter, in the things that will last. That sounds backwards, doesn't it? I thought if we were going to get out of debt and if we were gonna get out of, you know, this place of anxiety and fear, if I could accumulate more and I could hoard more, then I'd feel better. But what you find, again, is that that's it's opposite. It's backwards. God wants us to learn to give, God wants us to learn to release, God wants us to learn to live with an open hand. How he wants us to not store up treasures on this earth, but to store up treasures in heaven by sending it ahead, in a sense. Instead of just building a big 401k, right? We we build we build an eternal investment. And we think about what's really gonna matter in eternity. What's gonna matter a hundred years from now with what we're doing with what God's given us today? And so at a as a very practical level, um God wants us to learn to give faithfully and first. God wants us to give faithfully and first. Um, in my life, I can tell you that I grew up in a home where this was normative. So for me, it's kind of weird at times, I'll be honest, when I try to talk to people and they're like, man, I just don't know if I can get there. I don't know if I can learn to give first and faithfully. I guess because it was ingrained in me. So my challenge is a little bit different at times, and that God wants me to continue to grow in the grace of giving. Um, even though I receive, just be fully disclosed, I receive a paycheck from this community of faith because I'm hired as a pastor to be able to administrate ministry here, to help lead this church, and I'm by God has graciously provided for my family through the faithful giving of you. Uh we give back immediately, as soon as I get a check, as soon as I get that thing hits my direct deposit, we immediately give back to God. Why? Well, one, in obedience, because God says we should give, but also we give to become free from the love of money and the love of stuff. And we be free from being consumed by thinking it's all about us and it's all our stuff. And so in my life, I practice this that when we get, again, we receive, whether that be we receive from our paycheck or we receive from some other form, we give back to the kingdom of God. And my wife and I, I'm not telling you this so I can pat my back, but I'm just telling you, I'm not, I'm participating here, okay? Uh we don't only give back to this church, we give to other people, we give to other missions, uh organizations, we give to other ministries. Why do we do that? Because I want to send my money ahead. I want it to be invested in things that are gonna matter rather than just buying some more clothes. You guys don't know this, but I'll just tell you, most everything that I wear, I get from my brother. My brother, he is a clothes horse, and about once every six months, he sends me a bag of clothes. I never have to worry about clothes or shoes or really anything. Everything I wear, I mean, it's whatever style he's got, that's what's what I style I've got. Okay? Six months ago, yeah. Now, the reason I tell you that is this. The reason I tell you that is because, look, I I like clothes. But but I I'm not gonna go shopping every day, I'm gonna go vest myself in that. But God always provides. He always provides. He provides everything we need. And we have nice stuff that God has provided, and I'm thankful for that, but I love giving it away. I love giving it away, and I love seeing what God does with that. And God will free us up. He will take care of us, and he will free us up if we will choose to honor him and obey him and to be faithful with what he's given us. I'm not telling you that if you give, you're gonna get free clothes from your brother, okay? That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying God meets practical needs. He just wants us, he wants our hearts, he wants us to be freed up. And he'll take care of everything else. Now, I've asked a couple to come up this morning for just a couple of minutes and share a little bit of their story because they've been in this battle to learn what it looks like to give first and faithfully. What it means to give from the first, and rather than waiting until the end of a paycheck, saying, God, I'm gonna give you on the front end of the paycheck in faith and obedience. And I want you to also understand that this regular giving is an act of obedience and faith that God really honors. And I want you to hear their personal story in that. One thing I should say here is some of you immediately go to this idea of tithing. You immediately go, well, you know, he's gonna say that I should start giving 10% of my money to the church. Or maybe you're like, we already give 10% of our money to the church, so we're good. I want you to understand, Jesus only said something about tithing once, and when he said it, it wasn't even in a good connotation. He said it about the Pharisees that they were tithing from their spice racks because they thought that that would make them holier and better than other people and somehow righteous and of themselves. And he said, But even in that passage, he says, I want your heart, right? Not just your tithe. And tithe, by the way, if you don't, if you're not been around church, that's 10%. Okay? I think tithing is a great starting place for a lot of believers, a lot of people, just a great starting place. But my hope is that over the course of my life, literally, maybe it could flip to where we could live on 10% and give away 90%. That would be awesome. It's but the the issue is not about how much. The issue is where is your heart? Where is my heart? So, Michael Nofi, why don't you guys come on up and share a little bit about their journey? Because recently we were in a meeting and they talked about how revolutionary this was for them in their lives. Some of you guys know Michael Nofi. They help oversee our elementary ministry and just awesome. Ofi shared her testimony this weekend at the women's retreat. Uh, Michael here um has shared his story before. Uh they God is doing incredible work, but I just want to ask you guys I I mentioned to them a couple of questions ahead of time so they could think through that a little bit. But one of the questions I asked was, what what are the some of the barriers that you guys faced, or what were some of the issues that you guys were facing in terms of learning how to give first and and uh faithfully?

SPEAKER_02 37:42

We kind of talked about this uh last night a little bit, and it's hard for me to say, but like fear. Yeah, you know, um fear of not having enough. And you know, once we realize, hey, we have a roof over our head, we have a warm bed to sleep in, what is it or fear? I mean, we have three healthy kids.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

I mean it was just it was kind of overcoming that fear, which is easier said than done, obviously, but no, definitely fear uh that you said earlier on that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

So what was the moment for you guys, because we've talked about this, where you said, hey, we're gonna push past that fear and we're gonna believe in faith that God's called us to give. And then, you know, what what what was it that really helped you guys cross that line uh of faith and to begin to give first and regularly?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

So we were in a pretty bad spot last year around this time. Um we were in um just job situations that we I guess we had thought we were gonna have a better outcome with, but it didn't happen and pan out that way. But we kind of had to go through that. We were praying for God to help us be better stewards of you know his money, and that was the first step, just start recognizing it wasn't none of it was ours to begin with. And where we put it, you know, we could see our bank account, we could see where our heart was, and it was uh not where it should be. You know, we had other priorities, we have our kids, you know, we can't put our money in these uh areas, we need to put it over here. So we just started praying for God to just give us a heart towards giving and just kind of transform us in that area. And um I was doing Bible study on my own during lunch and I uh ran out of stuff to read. So then I just happened to find this book that the church gave out a while back in my book bag, and I just started reading it because it's so small, and I was like, oh, that's good. I'll read that. And it kind of like transformed my heart just reading this book. Um I kind of highlighted some passages in it, but um just it really makes you recognize that uh I mean let me just give you some examples. Let's see, it says here um he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the kingdom of God your primary concern. I mean, that in itself, my heart was not there. In first 2 Corinthians 9 7, the Apostle Paul says, each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or into compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. I wasn't giving cheerfully. I was giving out of fear, like I want God to bless me, but you know, I only have this much to give, and it was always at the end. And I told Michael, we need to flip that around. We need to give at the beginning. So we started doing it electronically, that was the other thing. Because if we did that first, then we knew come Sunday anything that came between then and you know wasn't gonna interfere with our giving. So that was part of where we started.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

Yeah, she uh she came to me and told me she read this book, you know, and and so um reading again. Yeah, and you know, every time she gave, and I was like, I guess we gotta talk about it now, right? No, but um she approached me, she said, I mean, it's as as bad as a situation we were in, struggling financially, uh, could barely pay our mortgage, you know, and um she said, I want to start giving faithfully and first. And um and she she kind of thought there was gonna be a little bit of an argument there, some resistance from me, but for some reason my heart was like, you know, you're right, because we've done it before and we've seen how blessed we were. We just we got off track and we started struggling. And once we got back on track, I mean it's just um I think there's a follow-up question to this, but um but yeah, just like she said, the um you know, doing it first. If you wait till Sunday to write a check, what happens during that week? There's not gonna be any money left in the checking count to write that check. As soon as that money hits your account, send 10%, you know. That's and I'm not and it's not just a tithing issue, but it that's how we do it because it's already gone, it was never ours anyway. The the rest of the 90% isn't ours, but we use that to provide for our family, you know. So, but um anyway, that that's I would highly encourage y'all to to read this book if you uh if you get the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah, and just along those lines, what would you say to someone who's struggling with that fear that you guys felt and and even just uh the battle of wanting to hold on when you feel like we can't pay the mortgage? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna have enough to even take care of the basics? And God's saying, I want you to trust me and give. How do you how do you encourage someone in that?

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Um well, other than like I said, praying is is a huge, I mean it we it took a lot of uh prayer in our lives. Um and uh just you know having faith that it's gonna be you're it's gonna be provided for. I mean, if you have faith that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, you're gonna have faith that God is gonna provide for you regardless of your situation. Which uh a lot of a lot of times it's uh like I said, it's easier said than done, especially when you see the red in your bank account. But you know what, like I said, I mean, we have three healthy boys, we have a healthy marriage, we have a roof over our head, we have a warm bed to sleep in at night, we have heating at AC. I mean, we're we're we're bl we're rich already, you know. So w without you know, whatever's in our bank account. So um anyway, I would just say, you know, if it if it takes a leap of faith, take that leap of faith. I mean, uh, I was given a challenge several years ago um about give it six months, tithe regularly for six months, and just after six months see what blessings come through that. And it was it was amazing, it was a it was a cool journey.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yeah. So and I know that specifically for you guys, y'all shared a little bit about just you were having a work challenge at that time, and and and just just briefly, just for encouragement, talk about what's happened since the time you started giving faithfully in terms of work and life and stress with finances and I'll let you start off. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Well, okay. So once we started uh doing that, we noticed uh you know, we were struggling in our marriage also because of the financial issues. So we started that kind of started healing on its own, you know, because we were like, Well, we're doing something for God and we're gett we're investing in our eternal life, so and you know, the treasures stored up in our kingdom. So seeing it that way really put it, you know, in a Much easier perspective. I wasn't it wasn't so hard to to to go with it at that point. And then we started seeing we started getting other career opportunities and more opportunities. He started his own business, you know, and that started giving us supplemental income. And on top of that, we he doesn't see it as a blessing, but I got a minivan because I see it as a blessing. And it's burgundy, so he really doesn't see it as a blessing. But um that to me was a huge blessing because my car was not not working out. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

We still need to paint that thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Um burn orange.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

But uh no, um just uh career opportunities. We've been praying for uh, you know, not just finances, but some some time to um have uh more flexible schedule to spend with our sons and uh to to run this uh side business that we started. Um BravoBarbecue.com, by the way. Uh but um uh look it up, look it up. Um but uh anyway, um not only that, but you know, just not just uh you know giving financially, but giving by serving. Um we didn't really think about this at the time, but after when we were going through these questions, and it's like, you know what, about this time when we started doing that, the church had approached us about leading this this children's ministry, and we kept pushing back. We're like, no, we don't want to do this. Um we actually wanted to get out of the children's ministry altogether. Uh we wanted to I mean no, we we wanted to serve somewhere else. I mean it's not that we didn't you know appreciate the children, but we're just we're like, I don't think that's for us. Well, um obviously the church prayed for us a lot. Uh and um I mean one day, I mean, we just both of our hearts were transformed and we're like not only do we want to stay, we want to lead it. And so um, and that's through this process, you know, of uh not only giving, you know, you know, financially, but giving with your heart serving. And um, I mean it all boils down to heart issue, you know, where's your heart at, you know? And um now we feel you know more blessed than I mean I I don't it's it's words can't even explain it. So uh it's still a struggle sometimes. I mean, we still you know we still fight, you know. Um sometimes money does yeah, have a hold of our hearts and it's still a struggle, but as long as we you know continue in prayer and give faithfully and consistently, um, we know what you know what we've provided provided for. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Thanks for sharing, guys. Yep, thanks. So as I've said um, and you hear it in their own story, one of the ways that we get free from the love of money, and the way that we can begin to treasure the right things is by asking God, God help us to faithfully obey you in this area of giving and to give, um, even though it may not make sense with what's in your bank account, uh, but to give uh and to begin to manage what God has given us more faithfully and prioritize it based on his instructions, based on his kingdom, and not on what we think uh it should look like or what we even think we need. Um, but I want to encourage you with one final thing as we close out this morning, and that is this that when you really think about this issue of giving, I know we've heard multiple times, and even it's alluded to in this passage, that there's a fear and there's an anxiety and there's a stress that really uh is a barrier to us giving to God and giving faithfully and first. Um I would actually argue with you this morning, and I believe the text reminds us of this, that really what we have in our hearts is not a giving problem, it's a treasure problem. That ultimately what we treasure, that will determine where our resources go. Are you with me? What he says in this passage is he says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where your treasure is, what you treasure, what you value most will shape how you live and what you do with what you've been given from God. And so the reason we don't give to God's kingdom and God's work, and the reason we don't lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, is because we don't value it. I mean, that's the truth. The reason we want to invest more money in ourselves, in our stuff, and the reason we want to accumulate more stuff is because ultimately we have a worship problem. We have an idolatry problem. We are treasuring things that are temporary over the things that are eternal and things that matter most. That might be harsh, that might sound harsh, but I want you to know God wants us to hear the truth so that we can be free. Because that when we treasure the things of this world, it's always going to produce difficulty, trial, struggle, anxiety, fear, worry. That is the byproduct of treasuring the things that are temporary in here and now. When we treasure the things that are eternal, then there are blessings and there are benefits that come from that. Are you with me? And God wants us to experience that. And so if you are experiencing this idea of you're feeling anxious and feared, and you've got this treasuring of the things that are temporal, God wants to free you from that. And he wants to take you to a different place. And it's not so that I can get my salary paid, guys. It's not so that we can just build big more buildings and do more church stuff. It's so that your heart will be engaged in the kingdom of God. And when we get to heaven one day, you're gonna discover, just like I'm gonna discover, that this by faith moment that we've had here and now is going to result in seeing that Jesus truly is the truth, the treasure. That Jesus truly is what we long for, and what he has given us truly is what we need and want and desire most. In 1 Peter chapter 1, it says this. It says this about how Christ has treasured us in 1 Peter chapter 1. For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, inherited from the fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. That redeemed word could be also used the word purchased. What am I trying to say to us this morning? The reason I don't treasure Christ is because I don't realize how much he treasures me. The reason we don't treasure Christ in this room a lot of times is because we forget how much he treasures us. He treasures us so much that he literally became poor. Where he said at one point he didn't even have a place to lay his head. Why? Because he wanted to rescue his treasure, us. You this morning, if you are a human being on this planet with a breath and a heartbeat, Jesus treasures you. In fact, he even went to a cross where it says he hung naked. He owned nothing. He was completely broke when he was on the cross. Why? Because he treasured you. He treasured me. He treasured humanity. And because he treasured us, it stirs our hearts to treasure him. And when we treasure him, our hands will be open before him. Our hearts will be open for him. We will participate in his kingdom work with the resources he's given us, with the time and the talent and the treasure. Because listen, God doesn't want your stuff. He wants you. And he wants you and he wants me to treasure him like he treasures us. That is what this is all about. And just a few benefits. Michael know if he mentioned them, they're in this text. Then you don't have to freak out about trying to protect this stuff that you've accumulated. What can be destroyed or what can be stolen. You don't have to freak out about having enough. If he cares for the beasts of the air and the birds of the field, he'll take care of us, won't he? And you get to store up treasures for eternity. Stuff that will last, that won't burn up. When we get to heaven one day, guys, I hope and I pray that we can honestly say, you know what? We said no to a lot of stuff that the world said we needed to have, and we put it into what mattered most. And we stored up treasures for the kingdom. There are people that are here because our resources didn't stay with us buying better houses, better cars, increasing our standard of living, but we increased our standard of giving because of God's grace. That's what my prayer is for us. And if you hear me this morning saying again that this church is trying to get you to give, put some money in the offering plate, you totally misunderstand. And if you're an unbeliever, you've never put your trust in Jesus, what God wants to do for you this morning is He wants to give you salvation. He wants to bless you with the gift of eternal life and salvation, the forgiveness of your sins. That's where it starts. And once your heart has experienced that, we won't be able to stop you from giving. That's where our God wants to meet us in this. God, thank you so much that you love us. Thank you so much that you are gracious to us. Thank you so much that you are setting us free from materialism and greed. I confess, God, there are parts of my heart that are still screwed up and that you're working through. I know that I'm new in Christ. I know that I have been made righteous in Christ, but I know that also there are many times where I can think that stuff in this life is really going to satisfy it, it's really going to bring security, it's really going to bring significance. And I just confess this morning before these people that God, that is a lie that only you can truly satisfy. And only you can bring true security and significance. I thank you, Jesus, that you treasured us enough that you would become poor so that we might become rich in the things that really matter. I pray, God, that you would help us this morning respond appropriately. Respond to your grace, respond to your goodness. I pray you would free us up from our fear and our anxiety and our worry about money. And help us to see we are managers of your grace. We pray it's all in your strong name. Amen.